I saw this the other day and I'm glad it managed to surpass expectations. Even though my game have not yet arrived, I love SRPGs and I know there quite a lot of people who are FE fans.Now I personally hope they keep the series on their portable console as it doesn't look like the Wii U is gathering interest anytime soon and if it were to be released there and not sell well, I wouldn't like Nintendo to think people lost interest in it again.

Also, I'm glad Nintendo had reasonable expectations to their sales number. If it were Square-Enix this game would be long history by now.

My Donnel is a beasty tank. On Ch. 18, and currently he's a L13 Fighter (used 2nd seal on him at L20). His DEF is just as much as Killam's, and when I combine these two with Nowi, I have an almost unstoppable barrier. >:D

Anyways, at first and on paper Chrom seems like a cross between Hector and Ike. In practice though he's more like an Ephraim since he has a decent start, quickly becomes your top shitwrecker (barring stat screwage) from midgame all the way through the endgame but he will eventually get outclassed by the children characters due to middling stat caps and some of the better gen 1ers like anybody with Dark Mage or Pegasus Knight.

To prove a point my Lunatic DLC file has him, Est, Florina, Leonardo, Marth, and Nyna being my primary fighting force but Florina and Nyna crumple up in one or two hits tops, Leonardo and Marth can last longer but I still wouldn't put them anywhere near the front lines, Est can take a lot of punishment and dole it out and is hella survivable, but Chrom is miles ahead of her though mostly due to all the stat boosters I've been feeding him since he has priority. At this point despite all the favoritism I've been giving Chrom he's only a little bit better than Est due to being sturdier than her but even he can get overwhelmed and killed like in Chapter 16 when you have dozens of promoted and prepromoted Snipers, Warriors, Fighters, Bow Knights, Heroes, and Myrmidons rushing up the middle of the map while Falcon and Pegasus Knights bumrush the team from the sides. Granted it might have helped if he had something better than a Concoction to chug in case of emergencies, or if Nyna had the Physic staff or the Magic to use it from far enough to heal him without drawing arggo from him or putting herself in the line of fire of the fliers, or if Chrom had a partner instead of being the odd man out (or if he had some kind of non DLC character to support with and thus have semi reliable support attacks and defends).

That said, he has the most availability, Falchion sets him up nicely early game (especially in chapter 5 when there's Wyvern Riders in the air) and Exalted Falchion is a very solid weapon for the endgame and beyond, his reclasses basically give him near maximum horse (no Dark Knight) but causes him to waste his time as an Archer/Sniper where he can't use (Exalted) Falchion, he's guaranteed to be wed and have a child (although he's not guaranteed to S-rank a support in the process), he's Male Morgan's best father if you're looking for something other than reaching the highest stat cap possible or taking up Conquest, Aptitude, or a Beast Mode, and he makes for a decent alternative to Cynthia if she can't get Henry as a dad. And his best skills are Aether, Rightful King, Luna, Aegis, Dual Attack+, Dual Guard+, Defender, and maybe Prescience later on as his caps hold him back and you're just looking to snipe someone who's being naughty in your sight.

Finally picked this up a few days ago and about halfway through(Well, probably less with paralogues).

I really like the pair up feature, especially with more specialist units. Put a peg knight and a knight together and the stat boosts cover their weaknesses, the peg covers the knights movement weakness and being able to swap keeps the peg safe when archers are about. The feature really adds to the game.

I also like how you can hit x to see the attack range of the entire enemy army or mark multiple individual units ranges. Tagging key enemies like archers/wind mages means they aren't going to sneak up on you and kill your fliers and you know exactly when to have them hide behind somebody.

Belated birthdays aside though, once you get Donnel a few levels under his belt (and preferably a forged weapon or two) he'll turn into a decent fighter. And then you reclass him and watch him shoot off like a rocket (even if he has to dick around with a crappy bronze weapon or two again). He's the reason why Chrom isn't the best character in the main story missions despite his early lead. Moreover, between Armsthrift and his high luck cap, he can wield otherwise scarce weapons with impunity which gives him the edge over Chrom should you decide to invest in him. He's also the best father for Kjelle, even beating out the Avatar since he gives two of the three most desirable class trees in the game, both of which Kjelle wants, and causes absolutely no conflicts towards Sully's sizable inheritance (although both the Villager and Warrior skills leave something to be desired as Zeal is probably the most useful of the bunch, though Counter is useful for Double Duel at least).

But then we get into post game where the children mock him outright and his lack of skills as well as anybody with access to Galeforce or Dark Magic and even guys like Chrom can eventually surpass him. He only has 6 classes (7 if you include Dread Fighter), and of those classes he'll essentially have the Mercenary/Hero skills, Bow Knight's Bowbreaker, Fighter's Zeal, and the DLC skills (of which only the Dread Fighter skills, Limit Break, and All Stats +2 are really worth anything to him). Of note is that only the sword Sword Breaker offers him any sort of anti-sword capacity since his only class with lance access is Villager which sucks out loud and that Bow Knight is his only mounted option. Incidentally, he's also a key component of a male Morgan with the highest possible natural luck cap of 51 (he's also the worst father for skill (which also hurts him since he wont proc Sol as often as other 1st gen males with skill based skills) and is a key component for making a Morgan with the lowest natural skill cap in the game of 30 as a Great Knight, 20 as a Wyvern Rider/Cleric/Troubadour, 19 as a Barbarian, and a miniscule 16 as a Villager).

There's no party in the barracks for me as Marth killed Donnel with a double attack.

You've got to be lying, simply because Donnel is invincible.

He probably just got the guy and decided to field him as is in the next story battle, and promptly got him killed in the process.

The lesson is to never assume the boss can't move until you step someone up to his/her attack range. Additionally, Awakening is actually brutally honest about these things. Just by checking the boss's movement/attack ranges you can tell immediately if the boss is going to be stationary or not (if the boss displays their full movement range, it means they will move; if it only displays their immediate attack radius, then they won't).

Anywhos, Anna (or at least the one you get). She's kinda in that same nebulous region as Say'ri in that they both have ridiculously few supports available to them compared to most everybody else. Unlike Say'ri though, Anna will never get Galeforce which holds her back. Unfortunately, her reclass set kinda sucks with another useless Archer set (although it does give her a bit of a leg up on Gaius with Bow Knight which she can pair with Acrobat, Move+1, and Locktouch for high mobility looting (which only really comes into play during the volcano stage and the Infinite Divine Weapons DLC)). Unlike Gaius though, she doesn't get anything to compensate for her lack-a-dastic Strength except for decent Magic and access to the Mage tree (but no Tome ranks and not enough Sword rankage to use Levin Swords out of the box either). At the very least, she's a sturdy staff user with good mobility backing her until she can use Physic. Though unfortunately, Libera comes shortly thereafter and pretty much eclipses her in terms of everything but the Thief/Trickster mobility.

The tl;dr is that Anna has a few niche uses for the main campaign, but she has to glue herself to either the Avatar or Tiki (who doesn't show up til late in the campaign) or find the bench unless you really need a mobile looter or a combat ready healer (until the children and reclassed 1st genners come along and take that away from her).